peltry

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. Undressed pelts considered as a group.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. Pelts or skins, collectively; skins with the fur on them; furs.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. Pelts or skins, collectively; skins with the fur on them; furs.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. Pelts collectively, or a lot of pelts together: usually applied in furriery to raw pelts with the fur on, dried or otherwise cured, but not yet tanned or dressed into the furs as worn.

n. A pelt; a fur-skin.

n. A trifle; trash.

Etymologies

Middle English, from Old French peleterie, from peletier, furrier, from pel, skin, from Latin pellis; see pel-3 in Indo-European roots.

(American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

From Old French peleterie, the trade of a skinner or peltmonger. (Wiktionary)

Examples

Nor would the theory account for the absence of a taboo in the lower savagery, nor for the totemistic character of the lady, nor, least of all, for the peltry which is the most picturesque, if not the most important, incident in this group of tales.

Soleure would fain have joined with him in conversation respecting trade and merchandize, yet the Englishman, who dealt in articles of small bulk and considerable value, and traversed sea and land to carry on his traffic, could find few mutual topics to discuss with the Swiss trader, whose commerce only extended into the neighboring districts of Burgundy and Germany, and whose goods consisted of coarse woollen cloths, fustian, hides, peltry and such ordinary articles.

The mud roof was covered with lynx, beaver, and other furs laid out to dry, beaver paws were pinned out on the logs, a part of the carcass of a deer hung at one end of the cabin, a skinned beaver lay in front of a heap of peltry just within the door, and antlers of deer, old horseshoes, and offal of many animals, lay about the den.

Indians; partly from what he received as a consideration for the difference between his full appointment and the half-pay, to which he is now restricted; and partly from the profits of a little traffick he drove in peltry, during his sachemship among the